on the surface, but in the marine deepths… It is questionable
well why not? there are tons of armored sessile critters that a smart animal could break open for food. land based civs that relied on similar resources go quite well.
That’s not an underwater civ thougt
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It’s analogues. If some crab of squid that used rocks to break open suspension feeders was getting killed by large predators it could be under selective pressure to work together to defend themselves.
ok but how does that relate to underwater civs being able to go past stone age
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The focus on melting might not be the correct approach to this problem. If the planet is rich in native metals, smelting wouldn’t be essential to make simple tools. Like how stone tools are made by smahing them against each other and using wear, naturally occurring nuggets can be shaped into a simple tool. Starting from there they could naturally discover other ways of manipulating metals like electroplating creating tools layer by layer.
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But how could a planet be so rich in native metals? Most of it would corrode away over the course of the planet’s existence. And even if there are a load of metals, I’d doubt there’d be many useful alloys anywhere
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It would either have to be precious metals, which probably wouldn’t be very helpful in toolmaking, or a constant supply from meteors (which could be the reason why a land based evolutionis not an option for this planet) or volcanoes erupting purly metal. It would be very rare circumstances, but under these conditions an advanced underwater civilization should be possible.
I actually remembered a species here on earth that uses metal (iron sulfides) by utilising bacteria which they attract and living near mineral-rich hydrothermal vents. Something similar could happen to an aquatic creature that stores/loses tools near such an vent and discovers that they have been fortified by the mineral deposits. Which would actually result in a fairly slow but constant and easy production of metal tools as all you have to do is hang a few tools near a vent and wait (you may need to cover them with organic compounds to attract the bacteria, but that shouldn’t be a problem).
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After further research theres 3 paths to civilization as an underwater civ.
1.Biongineering (selective breeding of livestock) over a large amount of time. Manius’s ideea.
2.Or metal smelting near a underwater lava vent.Because the ores of even soft metals require temps over 1000C.
3.Combining both.
And before people say oh but you cant go near lava vents.
Only thing he had as protection was the welder gloves.So not impossible to go near them as a aquatic species.
I await your debunking with eagerness.Thx
Last time I checked, welder gloves aren’t present in nature nor they are possible to evolve.
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Last time i checked you dont need welder gloves to go NEAR the lava tho.He touched the lava with dem gloves,You don need to do that with ores when you smelt.
I dont think this would be a problem to underwater creatures.
What about the various methods discussed of creating an air-space for a regular smelter? Speaking of which, here is something about the shell based design I proposed, where an exposed airspace in a deep shell houses a smelter: Due to the increase in pressure from the heat, the shells would most likely continuously overflow, which should increase the airflow over the smelter, at the risk of also cooling it down. But this cooling could be countered by making the smelter burn hotter in the first place
You need a connection to the air above the smelter uses too much oxygen,and for that you need a malleable metal.Which at first the civs dont have.
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What if we allow underwater civs but don’t let it to pass the stone age
how would that make any sense
Isn’t that already the plan? (At least until someone figures out how to preform metal working underwater)
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Well i didn’t know that
I am emerging once again to say that I actually was working on a paper detailing everything from the chemical composition of the planet, geological activity, the evolution of both the focus species but all the primary ecosystem they evolved in to justify the various niches and adaptations on display.
Now I’m pretty sure fish people are out of the question, my researched focused mostly on deep sea crustacean civilization forming from an extremely volcanically active planet with a (compared to Earth) high composition of silicon.
This could be changed to science topic really because I dont expect underwater civilizations to be in the game but the general question of “if they are possible” is one I’m still firmly on yes for, but under a ludicrously specific set of circumstances that’s I’ve tried to find. If you are intrigued I could go into detail but I’ve stopped all research because if was WAY too much research for a purely hypothetical fictional scenario.
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Are you going with the asssumption they need to discover metalworking first?Because you dont really need it for some technologies such as sailing,or animal domestication.
“but under a ludicrously specific set of circumstances that’s I’ve tried to find”
How ludicrous.Our life is pretty ludicrous when looking at the rest of the universe.